by V Vee
Then I grew murderous.
I was almost sure that if I were to see my man’s cousin again, I’d wind up putting a bullet in his dick, then one between his eyes. And I wouldn’t miss the next time. It wasn’t just about the fact that Seamus had watched me while I was naked. It was the pure fact that Andrew had asked him some very good, very important questions, ones that still haunted me, but he hadn’t allowed Seamus to answer.
How did he get past security?
Why did he show up without calling?
Why did he go straight to the bedroom?
Why was he looking at me?
Who had been working with him to let him in?
Andrew may have forgotten, but I had not.
But all of that could wait until later. I had something more important to focus on at that moment. I had to rescue Nia and Carrick from the accusatory eyes of the people who should have been supporting them the most.
“Nia! Carrick! I’m so happy you two came to celebrate my birthday. Especially with the two of you being on your honeymoon!” I exclaimed with a bright smile. I walked up to Nia first—this young woman I didn’t know, who was only a few years younger than myself—and wrapped my arms around her.
“Go with me on this. The only way your brother won’t kill Carrick is if he thinks I already knew about the two of you and gave you my blessing. We can get to know each other officially later. I’m Kyra,” I whispered quickly in her ear as I squeezed her tightly. I leaned back and placed my hands on her belly. I didn’t care what she’d told Andrew, Nia was not four months pregnant. She was at the very least six. Which meant it was her pregnancy—or the man who’d gotten her pregnant—which had sent her running away to Morocco.
“And how is my niece or nephew?” I asked with a smile.
Nia blinked. “G-good. H-he’s good.”
I touched her shoulder. “It’s a boy?”
Nia nodded, her eyes filling with tears. She sank into Carrick’s side when he pulled her close to him. “Thank you, Kyra.”
I waved her words away. “Don’t mention it.” I looked at Carrick and quirked an eyebrow. Loud enough for everyone to hear me I welcomed him home and thanked him for bringing Andrew’s sister, and his wife, home from Morocco where she was looking to expand our family’s reach. It was weird to me. Claiming Andrew’s family as my own when for so long it had just been grandma and me, or grandma, Michele, and me, then just Michele and me, but I’d accepted Andrew’s words… finally.
I was his and he was mine.
Which meant our families, our people, were one. Whether they wanted to be or not.
“Kyra,” he nodded at me. “Thank you for the warm welcome.”
I looked carefully at the way he was holding onto Nia; the possessive way his hand was holding her belly and I shook my head with a soft laugh.
“Andrew is going to want to kill you, you know that right?” I said to him softly.
I respected Carrick for the way he straightened his shoulders and lifted his head. “Yes, I’m very aware. But—” he looked at Nia and I watched the way his eyes softened. He shook his head as well and shrugged. “You can’t fight something that was meant to be, you know?”
Andrew’s roar of anger from behind me had me groaning and sighing in understanding.
“Yeah. I know. I know all too well.”
Then I turned and launched myself at my man before he could throw a fist at Carrick, possibly miss and hit his sister.
Which would start another war. One we just couldn’t deal with at that point. Besides, while Andrew didn’t know it yet, the relationship between Nia and Carrick wasn’t new. As a matter of fact, I was almost certain it had been taking place for years right under Andrew’s nose.
Information I’d no doubt have to ease him into if I wanted my birthday barbecue to be free of bloodshed.
Chapter Fourteen
Andrew- The Irishman
I glared at Carrick as he stood next to Nia’s chair like a big, fucking, idiotic sentry with a death wish. While there were still a lot of people inside, most of us had moved the party outdoors. Especially after Kyra had prevented me from killing Carrick.
The bodach.
“Don’t worry, deartháir,” my younger brother, Declan, born just a year after me, said as he took a seat next to me out on the patio. “We will take care of the traitor.” He had a narrow-eyed stare focused on the new “happy couple” just as much as I did.
I absolutely could not believe that I’d sent one of my Enforcers, someone I trusted, to go and retrieve my sister, to bring her home safely so that Kyra and I could take care of her and help her to prepare for her impending motherhood, only for him to show up, caressing her stomach, with a ring on his finger—and hers—telling everyone that they were married. I don’t think I’d ever been so livid.
Except the moment I’d walked in on my cousin Seamus bleeding out on my bathroom floor, with my woman a few feet away, wrapped in a towel.
I moved my eyes over everyone who was standing outside, looking for the one person whom I knew would bring me peace. Even if she did prevent me from killing the man who I guess was now my brother-in-law.
Fucking hell.
I wasn’t sure if I would ever accept Carrick as my brother, at least not in that way. The thought of him sleeping with my sister sent a red-hot rage coursing through my veins and before I knew it, I’d shoved myself up from my seat, intent on finishing what I’d started. What surprised me the most was that Declan, my brother who worked for the FBI, stood as well. I looked at him and nodded, before glancing across the lawn. As if they’d been waiting for me: Brodie, my brother the lawyer, Kynan, my brother the Marine, Galvin, my brother the detective, Shannon, and Bailey, were all nodding my way, before we all started to head in Nia and Carrick’s direction.
Once again, however, Kyra, whom my brothers had all loved upon first meeting her, interrupted my plans.
She clapped her hands together and went to stand in between Carrick and Nia, holding both of their palms with hers.
“I know Andrew told you all that you were coming out here to help celebrate my birthday, and baby, thank you so much for that,” she gave me what I surmised was supposed to be an innocent smile, “but I think we can all admit that today’s celebration for the day of my birth has been surpassed by the news Andrew and I could not wait to share with all of you: Carrick and Nia are not only married, but they are expecting a little boy!”
Everyone in the crowd, thinking that Kyra and I had not only known but given our blessing for the unholy union of my baby sister with a man who used to be one of my Enforcers, began to applaud raucously and rushed forward to congratulate Nia and Carrick.
Mindless fucking sheep.
Kynan walked up to Declan and I, followed by the rest of our brothers, laughing and shaking his head. He slapped my shoulder and ran his large palm over his close-cropped strawberry blond hair.
“Fucking hell, man. Your woman is feistier than shit,” he pointed out.
I grunted. He wasn’t wrong about that. Not even a little bit.
“And she’s certainly got your number,” Brodie, who was the leanest of the seven of us, though still muscled, and certainly the most groomed and well kempt, chuckled next.
I rolled my eyes. Kyra did have that.
“So, falling in love means handing over your balls to some woman to emasculate you?” Galvin, the brother who had the biggest chip on his shoulder, though none of us exactly knew why, grunted, cutting his gaze at a woman on the other side of the yard. I followed his gaze and tried to remember who she was…
Harper Anderson. A friend of Kyra’s from childhood. She wasn’t as close to my woman as Michele, but she was still a part of Kyra’s “people.”
I’d been a little amused when I’d been introduced to the women that Kyra considered to be a part of her “crew.” Or her own special brand of a “mob family.” That was, until I realized that every single woman was packing heat. From the preschool teacher, Olivia,
who my brother Declan couldn’t stop eyeballing, to the minister, Mia, that Shannon couldn’t seem to stop drooling over.
There was even Zoey, the Congresswoman, who had Riley all tangled up in knots. They were all women of color. All beautiful. All intelligent. All strong, fierce, uncompromising.
All as dangerous and deadly as I was beginning to fully realize my own woman was.
Kyra did have people. She had the type who could not only make big moves and change the very direction of countries, governments, and communities, but she had the type who could get enemies to reveal all their secrets, to get men to turn over all their money…
And to make rivals surrender just for the opportunity to see one of them smile.
My woman was bad, and it was oh so good.
“No, fuckwad,” I said, finally turning my back to Carrick and Nia, because while I still wasn’t happy, I was at least starting to understand what the fuck Kyra was trying to say. “Being in love means you see the world in a different way. Instead of killing people just for the thrill of it,” I held up my hand when both of my law enforcement brothers went to caution me about confessing to murder in front of them. I’d heard it all before. “You kill to protect. You start to contemplate changing your life for the better, or at the very least, you stop wanting to put your life in danger every minute of every day because you have someone waiting for you at home. You have someone special out there you want to see again.” I sighed and thought about Kyra, a smile coming to my face. “You start thinking about forever. A family beyond the one you were born into, the one you’ve chosen. You start thinking about homes, kids, vacations. Laughter. Dinners. Graduations. Honeymoons. Anniversaries.
“You stop being selfish and thinking so much about yourself, and instead your days and nights are consumed with thoughts of that other person.”
I waited for my brothers to tease me, to say something, but they were all looking passed me, so I turned around and found Kyra standing there, tears in her eyes.
“You want to take me upstairs and fuck me? I feel like after getting sappy like that, you might need to screw me hard so you can feel like a man again,” she teased, a few tears spilling down her brown cheeks, her lips trembling on a smile.
I growled, bent down and flipped her over my shoulder. Lifting my hand, I smacked her ass hard.
“We’ll be back. I have to go and remind my woman of who I am.”
I watched Kyra, intently, as she slid her hands down along the fabric of her red, halter, swing dress, around to the back. I knew what she was doing but couldn’t see exactly where her hands were to know if she was tugging down the zipper or something else.
“Here,” she said a moment later, bringing her hands back around to her front, bringing her fingers up to her lips. She then began to slide the dress down off of her shoulders. “Here,” she said again, brushing her fingertips against her shoulders. My breath caught in my throat, the heat along my groin intensifying. Kyra turned her back to me and wriggled and slithered out of the dress she was in, leaving her in bra, panties, and thigh-high stockings. She turned back around and gave me a devilish look. “And here,” she said, cupping her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra.
“That’s a good start,” I told her. Kyra smiled again, letting her hands fall slightly, letting them drift downward slowly—oh, so slowly—along her ribs, then her abdomen.
“And here, I think,” she said, stopping the downward caress at her hips. “And maybe…” she slid her hands inward until they just barely covered the front of her panties, the juncture of her thighs—not quite touching the vulva underneath. “Or maybe here…” she let them drop from their position over her pussy and slid them along her inner thighs, meeting my gaze. She managed to hold eye contact with me as she began to turn around slowly, until her back was to me, and then her hands brushed against her skin as she moved them to the back, bringing them to rest on the curve of her ass, barely covered by the thin, lacy material of her panties. “Definitely here,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me.
“These are all the places you want me to kiss you? To lick you? To bite you? To taste you? To mark you?,” I asked, my voice thick with arousal. “That does seem like a lot of ground to cover, if I want to do a thorough job, I better get started now.” I stepped up to Kyra’s side in an instant, reaching up to unhook her bra almost before she could turn around to face me. I decided to give up the charade of making her ask for it—clearly, Kyra needed me to remind her of who the fuck I was. I brushed my lips against hers briefly, and then in the next moment, I deepened the kiss, following the path that her hands had taken, sliding the straps of her bra down from her shoulders and then cupping her breasts.
I could feel myself getting harder just from the little bit of contact between us, just from the kiss and the teasing before it, and knew that I would have to hold myself back to enjoy this time as much as possible before we had to return to the party. I rubbed Kyra’s nipples lightly with my thumbs, feeling them harden to my touch as I dipped down from her lips to her neck, nibbling lightly at the column of her throat. I let my hands slide down to Kyra’s hips, kneading slightly as I worked inward.
I touched her vulva through the lacy material of her panties as I brought my lips up to hers to kiss her once more. I pressed more firmly against Kyra’s pussy, rubbing her slowly through the thin fabric, and felt the moisture already beginning to soak through the material from her arousal. I smiled against Kyra’s lips and kissed her more hungrily. She began to come to life, her hand cupping my erection and beginning to rub as her other arm wrapped around my shoulder. For a while, I kept things at that level, letting Kyra’s arousal simmer as I became more turned on. Kyra’s touch, rubbing against my already-hard cock through my clothes, was so good it was almost intolerable; after a few minutes, though, I guided Kyra’s hand away from my erection and towards the buttons on my button-down—to have her start taking my clothes off as well.
I nibbled at Kyra’s bottom lip then dipped down to the column of her throat once more. I felt Kyra tugging at the lapels of my suit jacket and helped her get it off me. Bit by bit, my clothes came off until I was as naked as she was—nothing more between us than our underwear—and I pulled back just a bit.
“Tell me you belong to me,” I demanded, rubbing his fingers along the wet seam where Kyra’s labia met, underneath her panties.
“Andrew.” She shook her head. “You already know. I… We…”
“Just say it,” I told her, kissing her lips lightly. “It can’t be that difficult for you to tell me the one thing we both know is true.” I pulled my fingers away from her, stepping back slightly to minimize the contact between our bodies. I wanted her to feel what I felt whenever we were separated.
That ache.
That hunger.
That need.
Kyra pulled me back, kissing the spot just under my ear where my pulse was. “Fine,” she said. “I fucking belong to you, asshole. I’m yours. For as long as you want me.”
I chuckled lowly. “Then you’re mine forever,” I promised as I once more cupped her mound in my hand and rubbing the heel of my palm against her through the thin material that covered it. I started to lead Kyra towards the couch in our bedroom’s sitting room; I was too turned on to get her all the way to the bedroom right away, but I needed to get us both roughly horizontal for what I wanted to do next.
Kyra went along with my lead easily, her hands trailing over my body, brushing against the erection straining at the front of my jockey shorts. We tumbled onto the couch together, and I pinned Kyra at the hips, kissing her hungrily as I became more and more turned on. For a few moments, I stayed right in that space—turned on so much that my cock almost ached, blood rushing through my veins to seemingly pool along my groin. I broke away from her lips and began to work my way downward slowly, nibbling and nipping at Kyra’s neck, dragging my lips along her collarbones, and then kissing the tops of her breasts before cupping them both, bringing them up to my mo
uth to lay claim to each of her nipples in turn. I sucked and licked each dark nub until they both tightened and hardened and continued to worship them with my mouth while Kyra twisted and writhed underneath me, moaning softly.
I shifted downward again, tickling Kyra with my breath and lips as I slithered along her body, kissing her along her sternum, past her ribs to her navel. I looked up at Kyra, her lips parted and swollen from our kisses, and smiled to myself, hovering at her hips. I could smell the thick, sharp-sweet scent of her arousal from the juncture of her thighs, soaking through her panties, mingling with her warm perfume—and it was enough to drive me crazy with need. I hooked my fingertips in the waistband of Kyra’s panties, and she obligingly lifted her hips as I tugged the material down, exposing her pussy to my hungry gaze. I spread her legs wider and gently peeled her labia apart, licking my lips thoroughly. I buried my face against Kyra’s pussy, nuzzling against her as I shifted my weight to hold her legs spread and her hips down.
She cried out in pleasure, reaching down blindly to tangle her hands in my hair as I lapped at her inner labia, playfully—barely tapping against her clitoris with the tip of my tongue. I took my time, sliding my tongue up and down her folds, savoring the sharp-sweet taste of her coating my tongue. I began to focus more on Kyra’s pleasure center, licking it carefully at first, testing her reactions—and then swirling my tongue around the swollen nub in tighter circles. I sucked the bead of nerves gently between my lips, before sliding my tongue down to her inner labia once more. I stopped thinking consciously at that point, instead focusing only on the reactions Kyra gave to the things I did; I listened for the catch of her breath, the moans leaving her throat, felt for her body’s growing tension, and tasted the way her fluids started flowing more freely. I worshipped her the way she deserved to be worshipped: with my mouth, sucking and licking, devouring her over and over again with everything but my teeth as Kyra became more and more aroused, her hips bucking under my arms and her legs moving as if to wrap around my head.
